'COMMUNITY' OPTION BETTER THAN SAFE-INJECTION SITES

Regarding the editorial, "Recovery house resolution will be welcome
at UBCM" (The Progress, Oct. 10), it was sad to realize that
unregulated recovery houses still exist, which are useless for the
recovering drug addict.

Few are aware that detoxification and rehabilitation of drug addicts
is a slow process and cannot be achieved in a "hit and miss" manner,
but should be treated in a controlled residential detox and rehab
community with compassion, kindness and understanding by professional
nurses, nursing aides, orderlies, a dietitian, a psychologist, a
visiting doctor and an experienced farmer.

The community championed by MLA Lorne Mayencourt in San Patrignano in
Rimini, Italy when he visited in January 2006 is the largest drug
addiction therapeutic community in Europe. One university study found
it had a 70 per cent success rate.

The addicts are put to work when they arrive, while being detoxified,
and are then taught trades and crafts until they are able to join the
workforce as responsible citizens.

The ideal residential treatment centre for detoxification and
rehabilitation of drug addicts in B.C. could be somewhere in the
Fraser Valley or somewhere else that is suitable and isolated, with
around two to five acres of farmland, carrying cats, dogs, poultry,
dairy cows, goats, horses and vegetable gardens, which the addicts
learn to support on rotation (hence, the need for the experienced farmer).

They could also be taught trades and crafts such as computer
technology, cooking from a professional chef, butter and cheese
processing, and dressmaking.

The instruction would not only be therapeutic but provide them with
employable skills.

These suggestions would seem a much more realistic approach to the
treatment of drug addicts than safe-injection sites where addicts are
encouraged to take their own drugs - obviously obtained through crime
- - and pump them into their systems, not being detoxified properly and
ending back on the streets.

To really be treated successfully, an addict needs exercise, fresh
air, good food, rest, kindness, encouragement, compassion and the
correct treatment.

The above suggestions would also solve a large problem for Vancouver
and Victoria and for other provinces where addicts, most of whom are
homeless, are taken off the streets, hopefully never to return.

They should not leave the treatment community until fully
rehabilitated and until they have been absorbed into suitable
positions for which they have been trained.

Those unable to enter the workforce after detox should be given a
suitable disability pension and subsidized housing, as some addicts
can remain in treatment for two to three years.

By Mary Hartman